Requiem by Kathy Acker

As a memorial to Kathy we are publishing Act III of Requiem, the last writing she gave us to publish. Requiem is a three actopera commissioned by the American Opera Project. It will be performed in Spring, 1998,with Ken Valitsky, composer.

Electra: I'm gonna to tell you about myself. (A little like a kid) I'd been working with thiswoman who knows how to access past lives. When I found out that I had cancer, a cancerthat had metastasized, I ran to her for help.

Why?

For this reason: When the surgeon who had taken my breasts off, a few days after thisoperation, informed me that some of my lymph nodes were registering cancer, I asked him ifthe lymph nodes or the body's oil filter could simply be registering cancer because I was on ahigh anti-oxidant diet. I had been for some weeks. (Picking at her feet.) He answered me thatdiet has nothing to do with cancer, with the causes of cancer. He added, "Nor withenvironmental pollution. We have no idea," said my surgeon, "what causes cancer."

So I decided that he knew nothing about cancer. I had no idea why I was deciding this. Iknew I had to find out who did know about cancer. But I knew I had no way of knowing howto find out.

Everything I had thought real had just been taken away from me.

I ran to George, my psychic. I told her everything that had happened, that the surgeon wasgood-looking. Like President Clinton. I guess they're in the same racket, I said. Georgereplied that I shouldn't be scared. She would send me to someone who kills cancers. Who hadkilled several for her.

I was alone again and everything that was happening so fast ran through my brains. I couldonly think about was killing cancers. If I can kill the cause of this cancer - this was my thought- the cancer that's in my body will go away.

I didn't know, however, if phenomena happen by chance or by cause. Now, if things,phenomena happened by chance, then nothing that I did or could do mattered, that is, therewas no way I could know what action led to what other action or event. In other words, ifchance ruled the world, then my surgeon was right: cancer had no discernible cause and my lifeand death were meaningless.

I can't bear this.

It was at this moment something, I don't know what word to use, came out of me, someonelarger in than me, and screamed without raising my voice, using a calm tone, "No more of thisdeath. You've fucked everything up so now I'm taking over." It was a male voice. I felt that myconscious section was just a part of a huge being.

If this world is meaningful, I continued, then so must be each of its parts, no matter howminute. If this world is meaningful, then I need to concern myself, not with cancer, but with itscause. Whatever caused it must change. I knew one thing. That writing is a way to changereality. I returned to George in order to find out how I could change reality.

But I was very scared: the growing fear that I felt was so great that it seemed just about totake me over. I was about to stop being.

Again George said that I shouldn't be frightened. Why was I? I didn't understand this questioncause I thought that the fear of dying was enough to frighten anyone.

Had I ever been scared before I had gotten cancer?

"Yes." I said this; then I thought. When I had been six years old, I guess it was six cause Idon't remember anything that happened before that time, I had been taking a shower. Mymother entered the bathroom. I didn't know she was in there because I couldn't see herthrough the shower curtain. Just like Psycho. She threw ice water on top of me. She hadalready placed a bar of soap on the floor of the bathtub.

It was a game. If I can remember playing these games like this with my mother, why can't Iremember anything that happened before I was six years old?

Scene 2: Light opens up to reveal a lovely small study in tan. Most of the walls are hugeclear windows through which can be seen full grown trees, tiny buds, branches, birdshopping here and there, maybe even a squirrel. The sun is clear and strong.

Electra, dressed in the actress' normal clothing, and George are sitting in two of thethree comfortable armchairs. George looks like a beautiful Hollywood actress slightlypast her prime; in a way she is, for she used to be married to a well-known Americanfilm producer.

They are already in conversation.

Electra: So I went to this dingdong doctor and she made me hold vials of different cancers inone hand while her hands tapped and sort of moved my feet. She said, "You don't register atall for breast cancer." "Maybe I'm cured." "But you have six other kinds of cancer." I think I'dknow if I was growing every conceivable kind of cancer.

George: Forget about her.

Electra: While I was holding each group of vials, there were fourteen, she told me to hold thethumb of my other hand, for each test, against a different finger. Each time my thumb touchedmy third finger, she found all these really bad emotions. She named each emotion, then told meto think about it and hit the base of my skull with that tool they use to adjust backs. A "clicker"or something or other. As soon as my head really hurt.

I told her I had thought about the emotion.

George: Don't see her again.

Electra: The most usual emotion was anger. I want to learn about this cause I don't think I'mangry with my mother. I've worked on forgiving her.

George: You must have been angry at her for what she did to you.

Electra: I don't know, but I don't know how I felt before I was six.

George: What's the first thing that you remember?

Electra: I do remember one thing that happened before I was six. I was about a year old. Ihad this pink baby blanket with roses. I adored it. They took it away from me. They said theywere taking it away to clean it, but I never got it back.

George: Now, be a child. Sit in a chair or on the floor as if you were a child.

Electra: George. (Readily sitting down on the floor, her legs away from the rest of herbody.) This is silly!

George: What toy do you want?

Electra pouts.

George: Would you like a stuffed animal?

Electra: I like stuffed animals.

George: (Handing her a pig who's hugging a baby pig, and a mauled bear.) Which one?

Electra: Both.

George: Go back to that blanket. To it being taken away. Where are you?

Electra: I don't know. (She closes her eyes.) A bare room. Grey walls. I see a crib. I can'tsee anything else.

George: Who's taking your blanket away?

Electra: They are.

George: Your grandmother? She's obviously the one who took care of you.

Electra: My mother, my grandmother. They're one and the same. They're the only people inthis world.

George: What about your nurse? You said you had nurses.

Electra: I adored my nurses. It was my mother or my grandmother.

George: What do you feel?

Electra: I'm really angry.

George: Do you show your mother you're angry?

Electra: No. (Thinks.) My mother was a monster. I wouldn't have dared.

George: Why? Children usually show their mothers how they feel.

Electra doesn't answer.

George: What were you so scared she was going to do to you?

Electra: (Her voice changing.) I tell you: I'm blocked. I'm blocking. (Her body is rigid andshe's in pain.) I'm trying to think of what I'm most scared of. Lobotomy. (Reasons.) They'regoing to make me into nothing. To make me a puddle so I can be just what they want. Then I'llno longer be. That was what their society was to me: The fifties and the sixties. Hypocrisy.

George: I don't understand.

Electra: I was constantly supposed to say to my mother, "I love you". I wouldn't because Ididn't know if she loved me. My father would say, "Why don't you tell your mother you loveher? She loves you so much." I was guilty. When I was six, I would tiptoe up to the doorwayof their bedroom, it was always late at night. I could hear them talking about me. My mothersaid that there was something bad about me which genetics couldn't account for and my fatherwould agree. He agreed with everything she said. They talked about how maybe I should beinstituted.

George: How did that make you feel?

Electra: I was unlike everyone in the world. I decided I was a freak. So my mind made upanother world: that's when I began to live in the imagination.

George: But what had so frightened you?

Electra: I can't remember back then cause I'm scared to. (Making herself.) I've got toremember because I have to cure this disease.

George: Go back further.

Electra: I'm trying. I'm going to look at my fears. Lobotomy. Fire. I'm terrified of fire. Whichdoesn't make sense cause I'm basically fearless: knives, guns don't bother me; when I was akid, I used to jump off the boardwalk over the beach. It was high.

George: Why are you scared of fire?

Electra shrugs.

George: If you were badly burned during childhood, you'd have a scar.

Electra: I don't have a scar. I'm scared of fire.

George: Let's go back to lobotomy. Your mother doesn't want you to be you.

Electra: She wants me to be really dumb and get C's on my report card. She hates howbright I am.

George: She doesn't want you to exist.

Electra: She's always tells me that. That she would have gotten an abortion if she hadn't beenscared.

George: She tried to kill you.

Electra: I don't remember. (Blocking.) Let's ask the healers.

George: Dear healers, please be with us now and answer my and Electra's questions abouther mother. Did Electra's mother try to kill her?

Electra is sitting in her child's position, rigid.

George: Yes. Did Electra's mother try to burn her when she was a child? No. Did Electra's mother try to kill her before she was born? Yes. When she was three months in the womb? When you were seven months in the womb, your mother tried to abort you using something todo with heat, a method common in those days.

Electra: I know this.

George: The abortion didn't work because you were meant to be born. You were helplesswhen all this happened. That's why you're scared.

Electra: What do I do?

George: May you go back to that child who existed before your mother tried to abort her, so that she can grow up in love. Give her the help that she needs to do what she has to do while alive. Amen.

Electra sings in a clear, strong child's voice:

"Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels?"

I know the answer: no one.

Tell me: from where does love come? An angel is sitting on my face. To whom can I run?

Take me in your arms, death, I'm so scared; do anything to me that will make me safe while I kick my heels and shout out in total fear, while we hurtle through your crags to where it's blacker: Orpheus' head eaten by rats, what's left of the world scatters, in the Lethe the poet's hairs, below where there's no ground, down into your hole, because you want me to eat your sperm. Death. I know.

"Every angel is terrifying."

Because of this, because I have met death, I must keep my death in me, gently, and yet go on living. Because of this, because I have met my death, I give myself birth.

Remember that Persephone raped by Hades then by him brought into the Kingdom of Death there gave birth to Dionysius.

You were the terrorized child, Mother, Now be no more. Requiat in pacem.

Tell me: from where does love come?

"Emerging at last from violent insight "Sing out in jubilation and in praise." to the angels who terrified away the night. Let not one string of my forever-child's heart and cunt fail to sing. Open up this body half in the realm of life, half in death and give breathe.